Frank Ocean’s "Blonde" Review: A Look at the Artist and Identity

His new album gives the "you-do-you" message the world needs.

This weekend, Frank Ocean unloaded two albums: a 45-minute visual project called Endless, and Blonde, its 17-track follow-up. He also dropped a music video for the song “Nikes" and a 360+ page zine titled Boys Don’t Cry. There was understandably a lot of chatter. The projects were the artist’s first releases since his debut album, Channel Orange, which he debuted a full four years ago. And, the projects were Frank’s latest step in defining — or conspicuously not defining — his own sexuality.

Since Orange, Frank's voice has been largely absent from the public discourse (besides sparse features on a few projects like Beyoncé’s self-titled album and Tumblr posts). As such, fans and critics alike pored (and are still poring) over every word of the new launches, dissecting them for meaning and intent. And while there is a lot to cover, it became obvious early on that the projects represent some of Frank's queerest to date. There’s no question about it: Frank, who revealed in a Tumblr post that he fell in love with a man, sits as one of the most visible queer entertainers of color in mainstream hip-hop and R&B, which makes his portrayals important for queer culture at large.

There are a lot of reasons his work connects with so many people. But one of the most salient is that he, and his music, have often bucked societal norms and expectations, instead trumpeting the message to feel however you want to feel. For anyone and everyone — including people like me who have long been sure of their sexuality, yet have at times received pressure from family and community members who made them feel like something inside of them was broken — this message is especially valuable.

On Endless, Frank places himself within the history of queer culture. The interlude “Ambience 001: In a Certain Way” invokes the voice of Crystal Labeija, a legendary drag queen, saying “You’re beautiful and you’re young, you deserve the best in life.” Nothing Frank does is by accident. The usage of Crystal is a homage to queer nightlife culture. It was she who began the house culture where LGBTQ people of color create their own families of support and ascribe themselves a name. And it was through that culture that the art of vogueing has evolved into what we know it as today.

Over the span of Blonde and inside the magazine Boys Don’t Cry, Frank etches out attraction and intimacy with both girls and boys. In a poem titled “Boyfriend,” Frank writes about gay marriage. “I could say that I’m happy/ they let me and my boyfriend become married/ I could say that I’m happy/ but cross my heart I didn’t notice.” In the track “Good Guy,” he gets even more specific, referring to a gay bar the titular character took him to. And there are explicit references to sex with women on tracks like “Solo” and “Nights.” Through it all, Frank never labels himself. And he doesn’t need to.

For some, a black man discussing his feelings in such a public and heartfelt way is a queer act in and of itself. In a Q&A in the zine titled “Key Words,” Frank admits that his mother warned him against singing with so much emotion; she called it “yelling.” But it was Prince’s “Beautiful Ones” that allowed him to feel comfortable with expressing himself. “Eat some shrooms / maybe have a good cry about you,” he raps on “Seigfried." On “Self Control,” he seems desperate, a position men in general see as the antithesis of masculine, asking a former lover to remember him. Even the name of the project, which comes written as Blonde in some places and Blond in others, is a play on the masculine and feminine. “I’ve got two versions,” he croons on “Nikes,” “Twoooooooo versions.” All this contributes to pushing the projects into queerdom.

Sexuality is personal. It can at times be uncertain, and is fluid and sometimes as ephemeral as Beyoncé’s breathy vocals at the end of “Pink + White.” But at the end of the day, your sexuality is yours alone. It does not need a label. It just is. The same goes with your feelings — there’s no need to identify them until you’re ready to, if you are ever ready to do so. And there’s no reason to hide them, either. They simply are. You have no obligation to define or explain any part of yourself to anyone. After all, Frank hasn’t.

His approach in the public eye has been to sidestep labels by presenting his actions without explanation. You can do the same. In interviews, the artist has said that labels that have been ascribed to him, bisexual among them, are limiting. You might find the same. So why use them if that’s the case?

Frank’s work speaks for itself. No amount of analysis can take that away from it, or make it any clearer. Frank is Frank. You are you. That is all any of us should ever be.